In the early morning, the skies in Ghana are cloudless. Without the shade of clouds, the surface temperature was heated to 45 degrees Celsius by the scorching sun. Even British soldiers wearing cowhide boots with thick soles could feel the scorching heat of the ground. Unlike the hot and dry summers of northern China, the air on the Gold Coast is rich in water vapour, which makes the whole village of Moxi feel like a big sauna, and the heat and humidity are unbearable. Most of the Marines who had never been out of Hampshire had their first glimpse of what a true rainforest climate was, and what it was like a bakery-like oven.

In the face of this kind of hot weather, many Marines from temperate maritime climates are simply unable to adapt. After entering the position to put them on alert, three soldiers were already showing symptoms similar to heat stroke. Wickham did not expect this to happen, and in desperation, he had to let the black slaves constantly bring water to the breastwork, and let the soldiers wet their shirts to cool down. At the same time, Wickham also allowed the soldiers to take off their ornate but heavy uniforms and wear linen shirts underneath. In such a climate, native blacks, who have adapted to the local weather, occupy a great advantage.

Ruhl sat weakly behind the breastwork, and fanned the wind with his military hat irritably, and when he felt that the wind was scorching hot, he put down his military hat angrily. Ruhl snorted at Smith, who was also wilting to the side, and said, "Smith, I think I've had enough of the ghost weather here!" What kind of place is this, why is it so hot, I really don't know what the kingdom's army is doing here? The only thing I want now is to be able to take off my clothes and take a refreshing swim in the small river on the side. With such a hot weather, the Moxies probably won't attack. If I had run a few steps in this weather, I would have fainted, and I'm sure the wouldn't be much better. ”

Smith was originally a blacksmith, and he had to work by the hot charcoal stove all year round, so he had to adapt to the weather. Smith was not as restless as Ruhr, and said calmly: "Forget it, Ruhl, if you really dare to bathe in the river, Ensign Bert will kick your ass." Yesterday Ensign Bert had already issued an order to leave the black man, and no one was allowed to stay at the river. ”

Bert didn't understand why the officer didn't let the soldiers go to the river, and asked with some confusion: "Isn't Ensign Bert trying to torture us poor soldiers for fun, don't you let people take a bath on such a hot day, do you want us to faint before we fight?" ”

Smith heard some rumors and explained: "That little river is not as calm as you think, and yesterday when the black slaves went to the river to fetch water, they were dragged down the river by crocodiles lurking in the river!" Oh my God, Bert, you can't imagine those crocodiles, as ugly as dead wood, with their mouths open thicker than your waist! And the Hessian mercenaries also said that there were some deadly poisonous snakes hidden in the aquatic plants by the river. Once a person is bitten, they will die within half an hour. ”

As soon as Ruhl thought of the crocodile in the river that could swallow a whole person, his body shuddered involuntarily: "My God, how can this Gold Coast be as good as the officers say, it is simply the territory of the demon Satan!" After this battle, I don't want to come back to this place for the rest of my life! Ruhr began to think nostalgic for the clear streams that meandered in the English countryside, with their plump river fish at best, and so many dangerous poisons.

Wickham was also wearing a wet white linen shirt at this time, and the hot and humid weather here was simply an enhanced version of Sichuan midsummer! It's December in Ghana, and most of the European continent is already a land of ice and snow, but it's like an oven.

Wickham held up the monoculars and looked at the crowded Ghanaian camp opposite, his face solemn. The Amo coalition on the opposite side had begun to assemble, and the black warriors had totems of war and victory painted on their faces, and held wooden shields and spears that seemed somewhat crude to Europeans, and their expressions were excited and excited, as if they were not going to a battlefield where they could die at any moment, but to a barbecue. A priest dressed in a leopard skin costume is performing a pre-campaign ritual for the warriors, a precursor to an attack!

Wickham put down the monocular and said in a deep voice: "It seems that the enemy is about to attack, Second Lieutenant Aven, Second Lieutenant Bert, and Captain Stanley, you must not fight the Ghanaians in the first line of defense." If the enemy comes up and wants to fight hand-to-hand, you must decisively retreat to the second line of defense! ”

The three men defending the first line of defense all nodded, and the fools wanted to fight this group of barbarians hand-to-hand, and they would send these heretics to hell in a "civilized" way. Wickham turned to Barnett and ordered, "Second Lieutenant Barnett, you have led your men in the trenches lurking on the right side of the battlefield. As the soldiers of the first line of defense retreat, be sure to strike me the flank of the Mossi! It's best to be able to stun the Mossi once and buy time for the first line of defense to retreat. ”

The only thing that worries Wickham now is whether the main force can be safely when they retreat towards the second line of defence. That's why he deployed Barnett's platoon on the flank of the position to hide, so that when the Moshees were pursuing, he could give the pursuers a head-on attack!

Just as the British were all ready and entering their positions, the Moses were also in formation for the attack six hundred feet from the village. In the front were light infantry armed with wooden shields and spears, while in the back were archers and some musketeers with arquebuses. At this time, the Ghanaian people's understanding of war was still limited to small group fights between tribes, so it was almost impossible to produce the elaborate art of war like Sun Tzu's Art of War and Clausewitz's theory of war, as in China and Europe.

This primitive form of tribal warfare is directly reflected in the offensive formation of the Ghanaians, and their formation is that there is no formation! All the troops of nearly 6,000 people have no sense of hierarchy, and they are all thrown into a small space, and the troops cannot be used at all. The Amo coalition army rushed towards the British side in such a mess, completely in a posture of drowning the enemy with the tactics of a sea of people. Perhaps in the Mossi concept, the more soldiers you have, the more advantageous you will be in war, but they ignore the impact of the open front on the strength of the force.

Ruhr and Smith belong to the second row under Bert, and they and Aven's first row will directly withstand the first wave of direct impact from the African natives! Ruhl's hand holding the pistol trembled a little, he had never seen such a large formation. Yesterday's battle outside the village, with more than 300 regular troops against 100 peasants of the Mossi, was basically not difficult, he just followed the line and fired a few shots, and the battle was over. You know, it is almost impossible for a heavily armed modern army to be defeated by the peasants of a backward civilization.

But now the scene is different, here is a cluster charge of more than 6,000 African infantry! This kind of large-scale cluster charge is rare in Europe, let alone these recruits who have not fought a few battles, how can they not feel nervous in this kind of front?

Bert raised the command knife in his hand and shouted to the soldiers behind the breastwork: "Hold your ground, and shoot when you hear the order." If anyone can't hold his breath and fires first, I'll let him wipe his gun for a month! When Smith and Ruhl heard the rebuke of the officers in their platoon, their hearts calmed down a little, and they tried to aim at the charging Moxie soldiers, trying to imagine them as moving targets on the range.

Faced with the full force of the Moxies, Captain Stanley didn't show too much expression. In his career as a mercenary, such battle scenes have long been accustomed to it. This is also the main reason why Wickham delegated the command of the first line of defense to him, and Bert Evan's combat experience is not enough compared to him, which is really reassuring. Captain Stanley raised his command knife and watched the distance between the Moxies and the breastwork, and only within seventy yards could the gun be used for maximum damage.

The Ghanaians shouted unknown slogans and charged frantically in this direction. In the eyes of the Ghanaians, the Bailao on the other side were robbers who plundered their land and wealth, and pagans who defiled the sun gods. The high priest has just said that this war is the will of the sun god, and the sun god will punish these white guys, and the only thing they have to do is to rush forward and stick the spear in their hands into the bodies of these white guys! The Ghanaians, who were in a state of extreme euphoria, did not notice the strange atmosphere ahead. Compared to the murderous and menacing charge here, there was a dead silence on the British side, as if there was no one behind the half-man-high breastwork.

The Ghanaians finally came within range of the British, and without hesitation, Captain Stanley's commanding knife fell down as cold and merciless as the Grim Reaper's scythe. Commanders at all levels, having received orders from Captain Stanley, drew their swords and gave the order to open fire.

For a time, the British positions were filled with gunfire, and white smoke from inadequate gunpowder burning rose along the breastwork. The Ghanaian soldiers in the front row, in a dense formation, fell to the ground with a wail like leaves swept by the autumn wind. Among them, the Ghanaian warriors who rushed the most fiercely and shouted the most often died the fastest. I saw the high-speed tumbling lead bullet, which slammed into the musculature on the chest of the Ghanaian soldier and tore open shocking wounds. This is the lethal power of round lead bullets, which are more than twice as lethal at close range as pointed bullets in later generations!

Ruhl almost subconsciously pulled the trigger after hearing the order for Ensign Bert to fire. After thousands of repetitions, this conditioned reflex was almost deeply imprinted in his mind. Before Ruhl could check his results, the commanders' shouts rang out again. The soldier in charge of loading in the back quickly handed the loaded rifle to the front row.

This tactic is especially effective when defending, as it can rain the most projectiles on the enemy in the shortest amount of time. In less than eight seconds, the British fired a second volley quickly, and the Ghanaian soldiers on the opposite side fell like wheat that had been cut. Strangely, as if they were not afraid of death, the Ghanaians did not change the direction of the attack, nor did they let the charging soldiers line up in loose formation, so resolutely plunged headlong into the barrage of British troops.

Captain Stanley, who had the most experience on the battlefield, suddenly felt a bad feeling rise in his heart. Just like a few years ago in New York, facing the Manhattan River in thick fog. Who would have thought that the commander of the Continental Army, Huasheng Don, would take advantage of the dense fog to fight back in that weather?

Sure enough, when the Ghanaians risked their lives to advance to a distance of fifty yards, a black rain of arrows rose behind the Ghanaian warriors with shields in their hands! This is a lesson that Ghanaians have learned with their blood after many confrontations with European colonizers. That is to use the charging Ghanaian warriors as human shields, and after rushing into the range of the bow, the archers following behind will quickly fire several rounds of arrows to kill the enemy on the opposite side.

If this tactic were applied to China or other regions with a high level of civilization, there would be no need to make such a big sacrifice. Because the range of smoothbore guns in this era has never exceeded that of well-made bows and arrows. In particular, the complex composite bow has a range of more than 100 meters, and the effective range of a smoothbore gun can be 80 meters.

In 17th century Europe, the reason why guns and guns could replace bows and arrows as individual long-range weapons was because bows and arrows were expensive and had a long production cycle. Besides, training a qualified archer is really impossible to get in two or three years. Relatively inexpensive and simple-trained, the musketeers were favored by European countries and became the standard weapon of European armies, despite various minor problems. It's just that the level of the Ghanaians is not high, and the range of the bows and arrows produced is not as good as that of smoothbore guns, so they need to shoot at close range.

After a rain of arrows, five or six people fell on the British side, although there was cover from the breastwork. Fortunately, the arrows of the Moxi people only had a small number of iron arrowheads, and most of them were bone arrows with limited lethality, so they did not cause more casualties. The Hessian mercenaries were very calm about this, and still fired a third salvo under the rain of arrows!

The wounded soldiers were quickly dragged down and treated by the accompanying doctors provided by the Royal African Trading Company. However, Bert and Aven's two platoons were not so good, and some of the soldiers, because of their nervousness, opened fire without waiting for the commander's order. There were also some timid soldiers, clinging to the chest wall, fearing that the next person to be shot would be themselves.

Ensign Bert was in a hurry, picked up the command knife in his hand, and slashed the head and face with the back of the knife to greet the heads of the soldiers, shouting as he beat them: "You bed bugs who are afraid of death, do you want to wait for the barbarians to come up and cut off your head and hang it on a tree for public display?" Hold your guns tightly for me, and send these heretics to hell with all that you want! ”

Ruhl, who was hiding under the chest wall, was also stabbed in the back by Bert, and there was a burning pain in his back. Under the coercion of the officer, these recruits hurriedly raised the smoothbore guns in their hands, aimed at the Moxies in front, and waited for the officer's command to fire.

Smith on the side stared at Ruhl and shouted, "Ruhl, we'll be fine, believe me, we'll be fine." I don't know if it was the tense atmosphere on the battlefield that made people too late to think about it, or because of the encouragement of his good friend, Ruhl felt that his trembling hands had calmed down a little, and he just subconsciously listened to the commander's orders, constantly pulling the trigger of the loaded rifle behind him, and shooting the hot projectiles at the Ghanaians opposite.

Captain Stanley was so relieved of his men that he turned his attention to the Marines when the battle began. It turned out that after seeing the commotion on the front, he was a little worried that the recruits who had not seen blood a few times would collapse. But when Ensign Evan and Ensign Bert braved the rain of arrows from the Garners to suppress the commotion, he breathed a sigh of relief and admired the courage of the two ensign officers.

The Ghanaian infantry, which acted as shields in front, soon fell under several volleys of British fire. The corpses that had fallen in front delayed the connection of the next wave of infantry, leaving both archers and musketeers exposed to British fire. The archers and musketeers, who had no cover, were soon met with a dense stream of projectiles from the British. The Ghanaian archers and gunners did not have the perseverance and will of the Ghanaian warriors, and soon dispersed.

It took a while for Ruhr and Smith to react that the first attack of the Ghanaians had been repulsed! In front of the breastwork, there were dense corpses, about two or three hundred, and some wounded soldiers who were not dead were mixed with extremely miserable wails, and the screams made people panic. Many Marines had sour stomachs coming up, but fortunately they saw some bloody scenes yesterday, and now no one vomits them directly.